Welcome to pandemic life-style

My attitude might be old-fashioned – “only write&publish when you indeed have something to say”, quite unlike this social media approach “posting something for the sake of posting & feeding an algorithm” … and it took me a while to decide about writing this, too.

Hopefully most of you out there did not get affected by Covid-19 directly, got sick or lost loved ones to the pandemic. Well, some of my friends were unfortunately not so lucky. Hence I am VERY impatient with “this is a hoax / wearing masks attacks my personal freedom / the flu is much worse” people * – please watch this:

Even when not infected by the virus, all our life-styles changed and for some those changes were more devastating and bitter than for others. All those who had not much of a huge income before the pandemic – e.g. musicians, actors, artists … Those who live in a democratic environment which takes care of people who lost their health and/or livelihood – and all those who are still healthy – can consider themselves lucky as they can count on support (well, we know at least one so-called democratic Western nation that does not even have a functioning health care system, don’t we?)

However, there is still the mental impact of this pandemic and everyone of us suffers in their own particular ways. As for myself, I should have assumed that the mental impact would be ignorable. I have done remote-work before the pandemic and most of my all-time favourite activities are solitary and indoors (painting, reading, watching movies/TV, running this website). In my home-alone time I picked up some new skills or revived old ones, e.g. sewing, and at the same time recycling old ill-fitting band t-shirts …

Still, I am missing the “hanging out, having a beer with friends” thing, going to the movies, the library or a gallery, concerts, festivals… just as you do. Luckily I have this 4-legged room mate and I am very grateful for this kind of company. Strangely, although I theoretically I have much more time to listen to CDs or new promo material – as I haven’t done much of that before either – I found myself unable to. When enjoying music, I rather re-discovered some of my old faves, “ancient” stuff I haven’t listened to in a while … as if I needed the comfort of dwelling in good old memories in order to gather strength from there.

And yes, just like you all, I have tuned into online event live streams and found them quite amusing, I supported “my” bands by purchasing tickets for exclusive streaming material. There is a certain appeal about a live gig in your living room … However, once again, re-visiting “ancient” live DVDs or watching some old full-concert videos online – those with a visible audience – made me feel much more comfortable.

Hence we won’t do much reporting or reviewing of such streaming events – sorry, I don’t see the point of that. But you are welcome to leave your own recommendation or comment about such virtual events via our social media platforms!

There are also more and more festivals that provide a virtual option for the cancelled occasion with some live streaming and I recommend to visit the websites of your faves to check those out for updates. You can still support your favourite acts by purchasing their music online or by buying some merch.

As restrictions are slowly easing all over Europe, we might be able to provide the usual concert reporting again soon. However, it’s clear that the “normal” we knew before the pandemic will probably no longer exist, at least not in the near future. Yet, some social change is not such a bad thing, at least for people like me who detested the “more-bigger-faster” clickbait / unhinged consumption / nature destruction culture we learned to see as “normal” … hopefully a different and more eco-friendly version of our world has a real chance now!

Have a great summer, stay safe and healthy!    (see here how )

Your ed-in-chief
Klaudia

* And I don’t even want to mention all those conspiracy theories mostly stemming from the “we need to build bunkers as preparation for Alien invasion / Zombie apocalypse / attack of lesbian-gay-transsexual-liberals who want to take away our machine guns” background… I cannot even deal with that as a joke!

Photos: free stock material, K. Weber